Thedisclosure that scores had been killed in the attack demonstrated Russia"sability to inflict huge losses, even far from the front. Previously, Kyiv hadsaid eight people died in the May 17 strike on the barracks in the town ofDesna.
"Todaywe completed work at Desna. In Desna, under the rubble, there were 87casualties. Eighty-seven corpses," President Volodymyr Zelensky saidduring a speech by video link to business leaders in Davos, Switzerland.
Moscow hadsaid at the time that it hit a training base with long-range missiles. The tollZelensky announced on Monday was more than double the number killed in asimilar attack on a Ukrainian training base in Yaraviv in the west in March.
"Historyis at a turning point... This is really the moment when it is decided whetherbrute force will rule the world," Zelensky said in his address, callingfor maximum economic sanctions on Russia.
In thelatest fighting at the battlefront, Kyiv said it had held off a Russian assaulton Sievierodonetsk, an eastern city that has become the main target of Moscow"soffensive since it seized Mariupol last week.
Russianforces tried to storm Sievierodonetsk but were unsuccessful and retreated,Zelensky"s office said. Moscow has been pushing to overrun the city as it triesto encircle Ukrainian forces and fully capture Luhansk and Donetsk provinces,the Donbas region it claims on behalf of separatists.
With Moscowhaving captured Mariupol last week after a three-month siege but losingterritory elsewhere, the war in Ukraine is entering what some Western militaryanalysts describe as a new phase: a major Russian push to capture the Donbas,before Moscow is expected to shift to defence.
In Kyiv, acourt in the conflict"s first war crimes trial handed down a life prisonsentence on a Russian tank commander who had pleaded guilty to killing shootinga 62-year-old Ukrainian civilian dead on the invasion"s fourth day.
The soldier,Vadim Shishimarin, 21, wearing a blue and grey hooded sweatshirt, watchedsilently from a reinforced glass box and showed no emotion as the verdict wasread out. The Kremlin had complained that it could not help defend him incourt.
In Mariupol,where hundreds of Ukrainian fighters finally laid down arms last week after anearly three-month siege, Russian mine clearing teams were combing through theruins of the giant Azovstal steel plant.
A hugearmoured bulldozer painted with a white letter "Z", symbol ofRussia"s assault, pushed debris to the side as a small group of soldiers pickedtheir way through the wreckage with metal detectors.
"Thetask is huge. The enemy planted their own landmines, we had also plantedanti-personnel mines while blocking the enemy. So we"ve got some two weeks ofwork ahead of us," said a Russian soldier, going by the nomme de guerreBabai. He said his crew had destroyed more than 100 explosives over two days sofar.
Ukraine hasbeen trying to secure a prisoner swap for fighters who surrendered last week.The leader of pro-Russian separatists in control of the area said the prisonerswould be tried by a tribunal, but a Russian deputy foreign minister was quotedas saying Moscow could discuss a swap.
An aide toMariupol"s Ukrainian mayor, operating outside the city, said remainingresidents were in danger of disease as sewers overflow. Ukraine believes tensof thousands of people died in the siege of the city of more than 400,000people.
"WIPING OFFTHE FACE OF THE EARTH"
Russia hasfocused its "special military operation" on the east since its troopswere driven out of the area around the capital Kyiv and the north at the end ofMarch.
Since lastmonth, Moscow has said its main effort is capturing all of the Donbas. Despitepouring its forces into the area and launching massive artillery bombardments,it has made only small territorial gains, meanwhile losing territory in aUkrainian counter-attack further north around Kharkiv.
But the fullcapture of Mariupol last week gives Russia its biggest victory for months. Itsforces now control a largely unbroken swathe of the east and south, freeing upmore troops to join the main Donbas fight.
In recentdays it has launched a series of assaults to capture Sievierodonetsk, theeasternmost part of a Ukrainian-held pocket of the Donbas and one of the lastparts of Luhansk province still outside Russia"s grip.
Luhansk governorSerhiy Gaidai said Russia was "wiping Sievierodonetsk from the face of theearth", trying to advance from three directions: to overrunSievierodonetsk, cut off a highway south of it and cross the river furtherwest.
Some Westernmilitary experts say Russia may soon be running out of combat power foroffensive operations and could have to shift to defending territory, while moreWestern weapons would strengthen Kyiv for a future counterattack.
"Astheir eastern offensive loses momentum, the Russians will inevitably have totransition to a defensive strategy in Ukraine. And in doing so, the RussianArmy will confront a new range of difficult challenges ahead," tweetedMick Ryan, a retired Australian major general.
Britain"sministry of defence said Moscow had probably endured losses in three months inUkraine on par with its losses over nine years in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"Acombination of poor low-level tactics, limited air cover, a lack offlexibility, and a command approach which is prepared to reinforce failure andrepeat mistakes has led to this high casualty rate, which continues to rise inthe Donbas offensive," it said.
